toujours_nigel | Recent Entries

Wrote and made an audio-clip of this for a friend's installation about menstruation.

( so uh talking about the social construction of menstruation )

I got some interest in a watch-along for the show, through June-August, so I've set up a comm

blacksails. It has open membership, so join, and we'll figure out a schedule.

Things to watch/read not the #GameOfThronesFinale has aired: a list (this is gonna be heavy on series, cause I like me some binging.)

If you're here for something with the most tenuous connections to history & canon, but with more agentive PoC and a relative lack of casual sexual assault, may I interest you in The Musketeers.
If you want queer people and pirates and PoC and hyper-competent women and politics and platonic inter-gender friendships, please turn your gaze towards #BlackSails, and its iconic Unburying of the Gays, with added straight-baiting.
For polytheistic pseudo-Europe with queer people given a patron god, nurturing and non-creepy older men, visions, hallucinations, mentally-ill middle-aged women with a destiny, dynastic curses and marriages, please read Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series.
For three-planet dynastic politics, a disabled hero in an ableist world, personal and political loyalties, spy-masters and diplomats, badass and tactful and quiet and heroic women, and a canonical bisexual military hero and politician, read the Vorkosigan Saga by the same author.
For a disabled, acrobatic, quick-witted hero, a heroine I couldn't but read as Dark!Sansa, coups & conspiracies, irritated nobles, impending invasions, the sweetest boy to ever ascend a throne, gods & their chosen ones, the theft of earrings & empires, read Queen's Thief and its sequels.
For Stone Age mysticism, children on quests, telepathic wolves, and dark magic that threatens humanity, please read Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. I know it's kidlit, but it *haunted* me for weeks. (Paver's Dark Matter and Thin Air are amazing spec-fic/horror stand-alone novels written for an older audience, beeteedubs)
For an exploration of medieval England & administration, religion, the consequences of war, the occupations of women beyond wife & whore, monastic life, aristocratic pursuits, the Crusades & their impact, please read Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter's Brother Cadfael Chronicles. (You can also watch these with Derek Jacobi in the lead role, if you can get hold of the 94-98 ITV series. Fewer episodes (13) than novels (20) but otoh Derek Jacobi!)
Staying with detectives but moving back in time to ancient Rome, read Lindsey Davis' Falco series: a twenty-book romp through the length and breadth of the Roman Empire under Vespasian with crackling wit, historical accuracy, and gruesome deeds to spare.
If you'd rather have politics, please try Colleen McCullough's sprawling Masters of Rome, which takes you from Gaius Marius all the way to Augustus Caesar and made me fall predictably in love with the vicious, brilliant, queer Lucius Cornelius Sulla who I fancast as Ian Somerhalder.
Or stroll back another three centuries for Mary Renault's lush and amazing Ancient Greece novels, all the way from Theseus to Alexander the Great and then some. Complicated, queer, mystic and political, and the tiny bit of misogyny won't even register after Game of Thrones.
But I'm straying too far from dragons. Naomi Novik's Temeraire series reimagines the Napoleonic War with dragons, and you should read it for stubborn & honourable, tactful & wounded, loyal & furious heroes, warrior women, a delightful Wellington, human & draconic politics.
Also, back to YA, but Maggie Stiefvater has a fabulous quartet of books with dead boys, living boys, magicians, oracles, dreaming trees, prophesied kings, a houseful of witchy women, queerness, friendship, & a goat-girl. Read The Raven Boys & wait for the sequel trilogy.
For queerness, politics, swords, assassins, family, love, magic, academia, and above all chocolate, please please read the amazing Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint, its sequels & the prequel series Tremontaine. I know I talk about it often, but I feel like I can't talk about it enough.
I feel certain I'm missing out on someone I love reading and will be sorry later. I assume everyone knows and has read #UrsulaleGuin #OctaviaButler @Nnedi, @zenaldehyde @kuangrf @tashadrinkstea @nkjemisin @seananmcguire? Good. Good. Plus the amazing @Miminality @emilyenrose @her_nibsen, & all the free-to-read SF/F/H mags. if you haven't please check out @anathemaspec @PodCastle_org @LightspeedMag @fyremag @FiresideFiction @BCSmagazine @UncannyMagazine @strangehorizons.
Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor is both very kind and unflinching: a story of a neglected fourth son who abruptly becomes emperor, and all the consequences spiralling out from that. Featuring the sweetest boy who ever got a crown, version 2.0
Nicola Griffith's Hild leaves me drunk and reeling every time I read it, and you should too: the life of St. Hilda of Whitby as intricate and detail-drenched as any fever-dream and just: political and historical and queer and feminine and everything the best bildungsromans can be.
Also please go read marina's fiction, both prose and poetry.

All these writers are women, several are WoC, several are queer, some are all three. I got frustrated with GoT back in its first season, so much so I still haven't read A Dance with Dragons. I already read a fair bit of SFF/Hist; I'd read le Guin and McCullough. But at that point I started reading women authors in SFF deliberately and pretty much exclusively, because it wasn't a male genre, and I wanted to read about other worlds and times from a non-masc perspective as much as I could. I also read historical romances & a ton of fanfic.
IDK whether any of the authors I mentioned will get TV/film deals, and as everyone watching The Magicians can endlessly tell you, there's no guarantee an adaptation won't take away the things you liked most. So just. Go and read these wonderful worlds by these amazing women.

but uh. For creation & breaking of worlds, kinstrife & kinslaying, murder of innocents, incest & torture, imprisonment & kidnapping, werewolves & wizards, stars & sailors, spiders & demons & seafaring birds, humans & dwarves & elves & gods, turn to the master. Read some Tolkien.

(reproduced from twitter & cross-posted to tumblr; my apologies to

dragonlady7 and anyone else seeing repetitions.)

and I have disliked this season just as much and for all the reasons I stopped watching back in S04, but in conclusion

( spoilers sweetie )

"Padmini's Dance in Pardesi 1957" (Watch on YouTube)

A dance by Padmini, from Indo-Soviet film Pardesi/ Хождение за три моря which was made in both Russian and Hindi, and was based on the travelogues of 15th century traveller Afanasy Nikitin.

pravilabhate (9591 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dushala & Yuyutsu (Mahabharata), Dushala & Bhanumati (Mahabharata), Yudhisthira & Yuyutsu (Mahabharata)
Characters: Dushala (Mahabharatha), Yuyutsu (Mahabharata), Yudhisthira (Mahabharata), Uttara (Mahabharatha), Lakshmanaa (Hindu Religions & Lore)
Additional Tags: Sibling Bonding, Post-War, Dysfunctional Family, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Summary: Yuyutsu comes home to Hastinapuri, in the wake of the war.

life, the one you get (2658 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers
Characters: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Peggy Carter
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, by a technicality but still, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Everybody Lives
Summary: "I was speaking to some of Maria's friends," Nat said while those friends--some women in bridesmaids dresses at any rate--got lushly drunk and weepy over Maria resplendent in her white gown. "They speak very highly of Vassar."

I was frustrated and stayed up *way* past my bedtime to write this.

I just got woken up by my guide, who called to tell me that the second draft of my second chapter is lucid, beautifully written, well-argued, the argument well-presented, and the best writing he's seen from me yet. (his words, not mine)
All of that is very nice to hear, but it's just gone 8 and I slept well after 2. And now I am well awake and can't slump back.
Time to start on the third chapter, I guess.
*grumbles*

flicked off

selenak , because I haven't posted yet this month (I have nothing to contribute to Mermay and am too wound-up to talk about my mental health).
So.

Give me a fandom and I'll tell you

Favourite Male Character
Favourite Female Character
Least Favourite Character
Favourite Ship (if any)
Favourite Friendship
Favourite Quote
Worst Character Death (if any)
This made me so happy you have no idea Moment
Saddest Moment
Favourite Location

Fandoms in tags, but feel free if you know any others I like but haven't included.

The Rangabhumi Exchange went live while I was sleeping, and I got two lovely pieces about the Kuru women.

The Sound of Silence (520 words) by MayavanavihariniHarini
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hindu Religions & Lore, Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Gandhari, Duhshala, Bhanumati
Summary: Daughters are worth a hundred sons-- literally--and so much more.

Post-Kurukshetra war. Missing scene. Oneshot.

Striloka (509 words) by kali_is_my_idol
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa, Hindu Religions & Lore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bhanumati & Gandhari, Bhanumati & Dushala
Characters: Bhanumati (Mahabharat), Dushala (Mahabharatha), Gandhari (Mahabharata)
Summary: Bhanumati had always thought she was different to other women. Meeting her mother-in-law, Maharani Gandhari, and her sister-in-law, Rajkumari Dushala, showed her how very wrong she was in her beliefs. She had not expected much from these women but they had pleasantly surprised her.

mātṛvat (2125 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa, Hindu Religions & Lore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Krishna (Hindu Religions & Lore) & Rohini (Hindu Religions & Lore)
Characters: Krishna (Hindu Religions & Lore), Rohini (Hindu Religions & Lore)
Additional Tags: Step-parents, Children, Mother-Son Relationship
Summary: Her son, Rohini thinks, looking at Krishna sulking in the dimmest corner of her chambers, outside the long reach of questing sunbeams. Her sweet wicked boy whom they have transplanted to such strange soil and bid thrive.

saputra (562 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Arjuna & Kunti, Arjuna & Pandu, Arjuna/Draupadi (Mahabharata)
Characters: Arjuna (Mahabharatha), Draupadi (Mahabharata)
Summary: Srutakarma is tiny in his arms, perfect and vulnerable. Arjuna wishes he had had time to learn of fatherhood from his own father, long before he became one himself.

mugdhakriti (500 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hidimbi/Bheem (Mahabharata)
Characters: Bheem (Mahabharata), Hidimba (Mahabharatha), Hidimbi (Mahabharata)
Summary: Age has only bettered Bhima, broadened his shoulders and strengthened his arms.

dvitiya (500 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kunti (Mahabharata) & Madri (Mahabharata)
Characters: Kunti (Mahabharata), Madri (Mahabharata)
Additional Tags: Wives
Summary: She likes Madri better for it, after anger has beaten its way from her mind.

kuhaka (500 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Shakuni (Mahabharata) & Amba|Shikhandi (Mahabharata)
Characters: Amba | Shikandi (Mahabharata), Shakuni (Mahabharata)
Additional Tags: Reincarnation
Summary: When he is four a mendicant comes to Gandhar through the mountains, up from the fertile plains of the Ganga. A winter crossing, hurriedly undertaken before the passes close.

sukhin (647 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ramayana - Valmiki
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rama/Sita (Ramayana)
Characters: Rama (Ramayana), Sita (Ramayana)
Additional Tags: Child Marriage
Summary: Rama at seventeen is omnipotent and omniscient, her first shelter in any storm.

yashashvini (789 words) by toujours_nigel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ramayana - Valmiki
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaikeyi & Manthara (Ramayana)
Characters: Kaikeyi (Ramayana)
Summary: She has only ever been happy as a queen in Ayodhya.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

Nausea served in the plate , the untouchable nausea
The disgust grows in the belly, the untouchable disgust
It’s there in the flower buds, it’s there in sweet songs
That a man should drink another man’s blood,
This is the land where this happens
This is the land of hellish nausea

The hills are always far away.
He knows the broken roads, and moves
In circles tracked within his head.
Before he wakes and has his say,
The river which he claims he loves
Is dry, and all the winds lie dead.

At dawn he never sees the skies
Which, silently, are born again.
Nor feels the shadows of the night
Recline their fingers on his eyes.
He welcomes neither sun nor rain.
His landscape has no depth or height.

The city like a passion burns.
He dreams of morning walks, alone,
And floating on a wave of sand.
But still his mind its traffic turns
Away from beach and tree and stone
To kindred clamour close at hand.

Your body is my prison, Krishna,
I cannot see beyond it.
Your darkness blinds me,
Your love words shut out the wise world's din.

with a very clappy, whistley crowd, all of whom--me very much included--howled and cackled our way through the big set-piece battle, which I though was better than anything post Ultron. I liked 75% of the film, which I think edges it into MCU Top Five for me, taking over from the first Avengers movie. I am also waiting for all the fic, but that's me after every bit of media I consume.
Everything under the cut is spoilery.

( The Good )

( The Bad )

( The I Recognise the MCU Has Made a Decision but It's a Dumbass Decision )

In conclusion, Team Cap for Life, yo! But also I find it... interesting that I have more emotions wrapped up in, like, Fury than in Bruce Banner, which is not how I expected it to go after Ragnarok.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

So--as I think most of you know?--I'm Indian, and we had a five-year decriminalisation of "unnatural" sexual acts from 2009 to late 2013, and legal acceptance of queerness as an identity only in 2018. As you might imagine, queer media isn't thick on the ground: commercial releases have queer villains or victims, rarely, homophobic jokes often.
In 2016 a family film had one of the estranged brothers queer, but obvs not openly at all, and we were all very relieved that he was a lead character and nothing offensive was perpetrated onscreen. In 2013, while stuff was still decriminalised, we had a prestigious short film about a young man having a brief fling with his boss' very closeted husband. In 2005, an AIDS film that had queer domesticity and was stupendous for the time. In 2004, we had a film that posited queerness as a result of CSA and also was very confused about lesbians v. transmen. This is all Bollywood, of course: regional industries do their own thing and the Bengali film industry--which is the one I know--has had some nuanced queer depictions in telefilms, and a couple commercially-released ones, primarily because of the fantastic Rituparno Ghosh, who ventured into acting in the last few years of his life. Still mostly sad gays, because well.
In 2015, a film called Family Album promised--in part--the story of a mid-late 20s woman going on dates with a view to immediate marriage and being completely icked out by the process, who falls for an artsy bisexual woman, and then just leaves her family and goes away with this chick. I can't begin to tell you how fucking revolutionary that was: two grown women (so it's not a phase) and the more conservative one actually choosing queer love over convention. We don't get those stories. I wanted to watch that film so very badly I cannot even begin to tell you. But obvs it wasn't releasing nationally, and I wasn't in the relevant state. But! SO also wanted to see the film very badly, and she was in the right place right time, and it was around her birthday, so I got her a ticket.
And she sat through a rather nuanced film, with a lovely soft queer storyline, and then the bisexual woman, after they've run away together and have had A Perfect Day at the beach, decides "well it can't get any better than this" and commits suicide. That was it, that was the film.
So, I mean. I'm glad my SO didn't find time to start watching The Magicians is what I guess I'm saying.

ETA: In 2014, as

dhobikikutti reminded me, we also had the magnificent Dedh Ishqiya, which straight-baited the audience before ending with Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi's characters living happily ever after (and having been in a relationship before and during the film). Shame on me, shame on my cow for forgetting.

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,
open your hands. I have just come
from the berry fields, the sun
kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might
feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many how small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift
I will ever bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do.
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

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rheaitis

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rheaitis

Recent Entries

Incomplete

Black Sails!

10 years on DW

post-got non-got non-dude reading list for sff/hist

GoT is over

(no subject)

Mahabharata Fic Post

Fic Post: MCU

ugh

A Meme!

Gift Fic

Fic Post

The Tempest, Epilogue, William Shakespeare

Ek Maitra Raangadya, Sheetal Sathe

Urban, Nissim Ezekiel

Krishna, Kamala Das

So I watched Endgame

One Art, Elizabeth Bishop

Storytime! (queer people kill themselves)

I Don't Want to Live a Small Life, Mary Oliver